


ribbit

by klaviergavout



Category: Pentagon (Korea Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 06:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18685573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klaviergavout/pseuds/klaviergavout
Summary: all wooseok wants to do is laze around, get high, and build up the courage to ask his bandmate out. an annoying toy frog threatens to ruin that.





	ribbit

**Author's Note:**

> hiya! can't promise how regularly this is gonna update bc i have really important exams coming up soon, but i love paul jack so much and he deserves a fic. enjoy!!

this was all hyojong's fault.

they'd been smoking together when it happened, because of course they had, it was what they did every saturday night when they had time to kill and joints to burn. wooseok wouldn't call himself a pothead but he wouldn't call himself inexperienced either. a few long drags and he felt free, floating, ready to spend the entire night on the floor of his dorm, laying amongst scattered piles of hoodies and wrappers and crumpled first drafts he'd given up on. yes, it was pretty stereotypical of him to have such a messy room, but the truth was that he just couldn't care. he had much better things to do than clean every day, and right now, smoking with hyojong was at the top of his list.

but about two hours into their weekly get-together hyojong got the munchies, which meant that wooseok wouldn't be able to relax until he went and brought his friend some food. as quickly as possible. see, hyojong, when high and in pain, was liable to whine so loud that he could wake up the entirety of seoul (fact. a few weeks ago he'd received formal noise complaints from his whole apartment building) and wooseok wasn't going to put himself through that whole ordeal when he was having a great time riding his own high, thank you very much. so he traipsed his way down the corridor towards the kitchen he shared with a few other flatmates, fully prepared to grab some leftover chicken and get right on back to inhaling the good stuff.

he fully blamed hyojong for what happened next.

because if hyojong hadn't got the munchies wooseok wouldn't have gone into the kitchen, and so his eyes wouldn't have immediately found the fridge, the very *open* fridge, and he definitely wouldn't have seen

a frog.

in the kitchen.

a frog in the kitchen.

a frog standing on two legs in the kitchen.

a frog made out of fabric in the kitchen.

a frog reaching up on its tiptoes, little green arms stretched out above it, grunting with exertion, trying to grab the leftover chicken that wooseok had saved for later

in the kitchen.

what the actual fuck?

wooseok stood there in the doorway, speechless, jaw slack, trying to process this information - and after a good twenty seconds of sorting out the absolute _chaos_ in his brain he at last determined that the frog wasn't real. frogs can't stand on two legs. frogs aren't made of fabric. frogs certainly don't eat chicken. so as soon as he felt able to move his legs again, wooseok decided to simply carry on with his plan. he strode towards the fridge with renewed confidence and snatched up the drumstick that the frog had been reaching for, having reassured himself that it was all just a figment of his -

a noise of pure _offence_ from a few metres below stopped him completely. out the corner of his eyes, wooseok could see the frog hanging onto the drumstick.

wooseok screamed and then the frog screamed, squealed, a shrill noise of sheer panic. he let go of the drumstick and the frog made a break for it, scrambling up, up, up and onto the counter, scaling the fridge with surprising strength for something so small and obviously not real, because how could it be? but wooseok wasn't going to let it escape that easily, real or not. so he followed the creature's movements from surface to surface, waiting for the perfect time to catch the - the whatever-it-was.

it came down from the fridge with an almighty leap and wooseok went for it. his hand shot forward with unprecedented speed and the little frog screeched as it landed, dodging out of the way, running into things and tripping over itself. pots and pans and other utensils clanged and crashed to the floor, knocked aside in the frog's wake - and as he tried to catch the falling objects before they could make any more noise, wooseok felt a very distant sense of fear set in, dulled by his high. what if somebody saw this?

and that question was quickly answered when a short, ginger-haired man burst through the door. the frog, mid-air, fell to the floor lifeless; wooseok fell to the floor in exhaustion.

"what is going _on_ here?" while the stranger was visibly not that much older than him, his voice was stern and flecked with worry. wooseok almost felt bad for provoking the frog enough to wake somebody up, but all that washed away completely when the man's face relaxed and he said, "wait, jung wooseok? is that you?"

wooseok's head snapped up and he winced at the sudden sear of pain from the crick in his neck. they really had been lying on his dorm room floor for a while. "yeah, yeah, that's... that's me, yeah."

"wow, i've heard so much about you! didn't think you'd be this clumsy, though." wooseok was about to ask just what he meant by that when the stranger lit up, a grin of pure sunshine bursting onto his face. wooseok was floored - he didn't think he'd seen anyone smile so wide, ever. it was really something special. "i'm hwitaek. hyojong's boyfriend. but you can call me hui, everyone does, it's no big deal."

oh, so _this_  was the hwitaek that hyojong never shut up about. yeah, he knew this guy. a few years his senior, majoring in psychology. caring and kind but too considerate for his own good. apparently he wrote songs, really good ones too, but mount olympus wasn't looking for a new composer. that was hyunggu's job. and if it came between choosing hyunggu - the prettiest boy he'd ever seen, the absolute centre of his universe - or hyojong's new boyfriend, he'd pick hyunggu every single time.

his daydream was shattered in an instant when hui spoke again. "i came to bring him back to my place, it's getting pretty late and he has a few lectures tomorrow. i hope that's okay with you?"

wooseok nodded, because this was just like hyojong, putting weed before all his priorities. he could even say the same for himself to a lesser extent. but hui's statement was still bothering him:  _didn't think you'd be this clumsy, though._  wooseok had never liked assumptions.

"it wasn't me, dude, listen. that _thing_ over there," he explained, pointing wildly at the toy, "it was, it was _literally_ trying to steal my food."

hui raised an eyebrow. "really now."

"yes, i'm serious. it ran on top of the counter and knocked over all the - wait, no no no no no, don't _touch_ it -"

despite wooseok's protestations, hui picked up the frog from the floor. it lay motionless in his hands as he brought it closer, examined its soft body, prodded at the cotton. he smiled wide. "so you're saying that this was running around on its own? this cute little baby toy?"

" _yes._ god, i sound insane," wooseok added with a groan, putting his head in his hands. he wanted nothing more than to just sink through the floor, and with his mind still a little unstable from the weed, it felt like he was practically already doing so. "i promise i'm not lying. i just wanted to get hyojong some chicken and leave."

and this admission seemed to spark something in hui, because his grip on the frog tightened and his eyes bugged out and he whispered, "oh shit. hyojong."

seems hui knew exactly what was involved when hyojong got the munchies.

* * *

when the two of them made it back to wooseok's room they were completely out-of-breath, hui holding the frog in a vice grip - and hyojong was still in the exact same position that he had been in twenty minutes ago, which meant he was spread-eagled on the floor, clutching a joint, making little uncomfortable groans. with teary, dilated eyes he stared up at the two of them, a weak little smile spreading across his face when he noticed the shorter of the two. "hey hui."

without even looking behind him hui shoved the frog to a very unenthusiastic wooseok and rushed towards his boyfriend, kneeling down in front of him and cupping his cheeks, not bothering to hide the concern on his face. "hyo, if you're this hungry, you need to go get it yourself, okay? wooseok was held up in there, what if he was busy for longer? stop being so lazy."

hyojong just pouted in response, reaching his hands up and making little grabby motions, like a baby. wooseok couldn't believe his eyes. he knew hyojong pretty well, the dude was an absolute laugh most of the time, but wooseok had never seen him so... vulnerable. needless to say he felt pretty bad for not getting him some food on time.

"'hurts. 'want hyuna."

hyojong shifted uncomfortably, hui nodded in agreement, and wooseok was just confused.

"who's hyuna?"

"she's our girlfriend," said hui, with the slight annoyance of someone who's had to explain something to the point of exhaustion, and wooseok's eyes almost popped out of their sockets with the _force_ of the stare he shot the two of them.

"'our'? like, she's dating both of you?"

"yeah. she lives with us, too." hui turned himself so that he was facing away from hyojong and let his boyfriend climb sleepily onto his back. it was his turn now to shoot wooseok a look, suspicious and disparaging, and wooseok felt unease fester in the pit of his stomach. "is that a problem?"

"no! no, not at all, seriously, i just - it's been a long night. i'm sorry." of course it wasn't a problem, hyojong was one of his best friends, but at this point he just wanted the two of them to leave so he could deal with the biggest problem on his hands - quite literally _on his hands,_ because he was still holding the damn thing - whether hyo was one of his best friends or not.

thankfully, hui (and hyojong in turn, draped lazily over hui's back) got up from the ground with a smile. "that's okay. i should probably get this one home before we all crash out."

"yeah," said wooseok, making a mental note to ask hyojong all the details about this three-person arrangement when he woke up tomorrow morning.

"it was nice meeting you, wooseok. i'll see you again?"

"yeah, come round whenever."

"sure. say bye, hyo."

"bye, 'seok," said hyojong, reaching up to give his friend a half-hearted salute, and with that they were gone.

when he heard the door click closed behind them, wooseok sank onto his bed, raking a hand through his jet black hair. what the fuck was he going to do now? he held up the toy in front of him, almost willing it to move again, but he couldn't wait that long - one look at the frog's stitched smile, taunting him, and wooseok threw it all the way across the room.

* * *

wooseok's dorm ''was'' messy, there was no doubt about that - he just didn't care enough to regularly clean it. he'd made it a whole week without cleaning at this point and his bin was overflowing, wrappers scattered everywhere. most of his clothes were clumped in piles, the smarter stuff gathering dust in his closet. again, he didn't really care.

but when wooseok woke up that morning, eyes still lidded and clogged with gunk, all the amount of care in the world overtook him all at once when he saw

_chaos._

if it was messy before it was absolutely disgusting now. his overflowing bin had been completely tipped over, its contents all over the floor. shirts and trousers and pants now free from their piles were scattered about, alongside (to his horror) suits and ties and button-ups that must have been taken right out of his closet. balls of crumpled up paper lay strewn about, as well as all his pens, pencils, stationery -

wooseok took a _very_ shaky breath in an attempt to regulate his anger, but the smell of the upturned bin was just beginning to hit him - he must have left some food in there. he inhaled the stench of week-old noodles and couldn't hold back a gag from deep in his throat.

"you little shit," grumbled wooseok, getting out of bed and heading straight towards his desk. there, the little frog, in fits of giggles, was busying itself removing every post-it note from a full pack one by one. luckily it didn't notice him, gleefully engrossed in peeling away post-it #30, which gave wooseok a chance. he reached out to grab the toy and finally made contact, hand tightening firmly round its waist on impact. "did you do this because i threw you? huh?"

unlike last night where it had practically dropped dead, letting hui and wooseok carry it around as much as they wanted, the frog was showing no compliance today. it kicked and shrieked and flailed its arms, trying to swat wooseok's face, but wooseok kept it at arm's length. when hitting him proved useless, the frog tried a different tactic; discharging a long, pink, fibrous tongue, aiming right for wooseok's eye.

"ow!" wooseok's hand instinctively let go and shot up to cover his eye, now painful and watery. again the frog tried to escape, hopping down from the desk and onto the floor, scrambling inside an open shoebox and closing the lid - but this was its biggest mistake. wooseok formulated a plan in seconds.

he picked the shoebox up from the floor and tucked it under his arm, which was met with discontented squeals from the frog. with his free hand he rooted through his desk drawers until he found some duct tape and scissors, after which he sealed the whole box up, cutting off the excess tape. it was trapped, finally. wooseok breathed easy for the first time in hours.

and that's when he saw it; the logo on the side of the shoebox, stencilled in neon blue next to a running silhouette: _paul jack._ some cheap import brand of knock-off nike's he must have bought in his first year of uni. silly as it seemed the name resonated with him, felt like a punch in the gut and he didn't know why until a series of whines and desperate thumps on the lid brought him back to reality.

suddenly wooseok's heart kicked into gear, all that previous anger and frustration giving way to concern. he didn't quite understand the logic behind how this frog could be alive in the first place, didn't really want to, but he wasn't about to let it suffocate. he poked a few holes in the lid of the box to allow some air in and the frog croaked happily in response.

"you really are the most annoying thing i've ever met," said wooseok simply, quite overwhelmed by the events of the past few hours, by that _name_. he put the box down with shaky hands, stood there and watched until the frog went quiet.


End file.
